


Flour, Water, Salt

by VeraBAdler



Series: October 2018 challenges [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Bread, M/M, Rutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 15:17:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeraBAdler/pseuds/VeraBAdler
Summary: In which a little mason jar of smelly goop changes a few things about life at Camp Chitaqua for the better.Fictober prompt: “But I will never forget!”Promptober prompt: Endverse





	Flour, Water, Salt

Dean didn't connect the dots until later, but Cas started to get better as soon as he found that jar of goop. They'd been out on a supply run, rummaging through one of the abandoned houses in the northeast quadrant – what had been the nicer part of town back when anything was still nice. He'd sent Cas to shake down the kitchen for canned goods while he'd checked the bathrooms for medical supplies. (He'd learned never to send Cas to check out a medicine cabinet unsupervised.)

As he'd tromped downstairs, backpack loaded with bandages and baby aspirin, he'd heard Cas make a low sound of surprised pleasure. No two ways about it, that happy noise gave him the worries. He'd been trying and failing to get Cas to stay clean for months now. Was pre-Croat life in this cozy suburban bungalow less bucolic than it appeared? Was there a stash of Mother's Little Helpers in the cupboard for his junkie ex-angel to find?

By the time he'd passed the big table in the family dining room, his mind had spun through a whirlwind of worst-case scenarios. So when he'd stepped into the kitchen and seen Cas's hands cradling _not_ dirty needles or fistfuls of pills but a clamp-top mason jar full of weird grayish gunk, it had thrown him.

“Whuh?” he'd begun, insightfully.

Cas had turned those blue, blue eyes up to him (only a little hazy today, can't be too high on a supply run) and fucking _beamed_. “Look at it!” he'd cooed. “It's still alive!”

Dean had looked closer at the jar, not daring to lean too near because apparently “it” was “alive” in there, and God only knew what the fuck _that_ meant. He saw gray goo. A few bubbles. _What the hell?_ he'd thought.

“What the hell?” he'd inquired.

“It's a yeast starter. Sourdough,” Cas had explained, his tone losing a bit of its usual drug-addled softness as he drifted back towards his old “Angel Explains It All” voice.

Dean had wrinkled his nose, hearing “yeast” and “sour,” but decided that now was not the time for further discussion of the crud in the jar. “Whatever, man. Did you find any food we can take?”

Cas had gestured towards a tall pantry door to their left. “Fully stocked. We should send a bigger crew out to get it all.”

“Hot damn, Cas. That's a hell of a find. Let's head back and round up some volunteers.”

Cas had nodded along, but his eyes had never left the bubbly gray sludge. So it was no surprise that it had come back to camp with them. Cas had filled his pack with cans of soup and pineapple, but he'd carried the jar like a treasure, nestled safely in the crook of one arm. Dean had glanced over at him more than once on the hike back and seen him beaming down at it like it was his infant son.

 _Whatever,_ he'd thought. _Guy's been through some crap. Weird jar of slime makes him happy? Rock on, weird jar of slime. Hope he doesn't snort it or anything..._

* * *

Life at the camp was never short on distractions, and by the time a fistfight broke out over a can of Spaghettios that the recon team had found at the back of the pantry, the jar had disappeared from Dean's thoughts. A few days later, though, Cas walked into his shack with a warm, fragrant loaf of bread in his hands.

“Holy shit, Cas, where'd you get that? It smells _amazing_.” Dean's mouth was watering. How long had it been since he'd smelled fresh-baked bread? Years? 

“I made it.” Beaming, he tore off a hunk of the loaf and handed it to Dean, who shoved the whole thing into his mouth at once.

He was not in the slightest bit ashamed of the absolutely sexual noise that he made when that bread hit his tongue. It was _perfect_ – crisp and chewy crust, creamy interior with a fantastic tangy flavor. “Ohhh mah _gah_ , Caf,” he moaned. “Thiff if increbble!” He made grabby hands towards the rest of the loaf, and Cas handed it over with a wink.

“It's all yours, Fearless Leader. You're my guinea pig. I wanted to know if it's any good, but I think you've already given me your review.”

“Cas, this bread is _amazing_. How the fuck did you make it? Last I checked, we don't own an oven.”

“You don't need an oven to make bread, Dean. Prehistoric man was mixing grains and water and cooking the resulting starchy gruel on heated rocks more than 30,000 years ago.”

“You're telling me you made this gorgeous manna out of gruel and rocks?”

“I'm telling you that I used the sourdough starter we found last week to make bread dough, which I then baked on some bricks set into the coals of a fire. If you think everyone would enjoy it as much as you seem to, I'd like to start baking bread for the whole camp.”

“For the whole camp? That'd be a lot of work, wouldn't it? How long did it take you to make this?”

“It took most of a day, but there were frequent periods of inactivity. Once the leaven is readied, the dough is mixed, and then it rests for a few hours. After that I knead it a bit, let it rise for an hour, shape it, let it rise for a few more hours, then bake it. It's a very soothing practice, one that feels akin to meditation.” He hesitated, then continued, his face downcast. “Since my injury, I know I've been of limited help to you and that's been a source of great pain for me, pain that I've numbed in any way I could. Baking bread seems to quiet my mind, and it would be a way for me to be useful to you again.”

Dean felt lost for words. Cas was the best friend he'd ever had; he'd given _everything_ for Dean over the years, again and again. And Dean had been letting Cas drug himself into a stupor because he felt like he couldn't _do_ enough for Dean. Now here he stood, lucid and clear-eyed and sounding like his old self again, handing him a loaf of beautiful homemade bread and offering even more of his service. Guilt put a lump in Dean's throat, and he swallowed hard against it.

“Cas,” he started, putting the bread down and reaching for him, folding him into a tight hug. “This bread's fucking delicious, but you don't need to become the village baker on my account. You don't need to make yourself useful to me. You're not a tool. You're my friend, and I love you, and you don't owe me anything.”

Cas made a noise that was half laugh, half sob, and brought his arms up around Dean's waist, squeezing him back just as tightly. “Dean... Thank you. For your kind words, and for your friendship. You're wrong, though. I do owe you. I owe you everything. And more than that, I owe a debt of penance for the pain I've caused you in the past, and the pain I've caused so many others. The lives I've taken... You may have forgiven the mistakes I've made, but I will never forget. I've had power, and I've abused that power. I'm only a man now, and not much of a man at that, and if I can use my meager skills to feed our people then I would like to devote myself to doing so.”

“Not much of a–” Dean choked on his disbelief. “Cas, you're the best man I know. You're... Cas, you're everything. You're my _everything_.” It had been a long time since they'd been like this. It'd been too much of a struggle to find any tenderness together since Detroit, but now they fell back into each other like no time had passed. Dean's mouth found Cas's and they kissed until their lips began to ache.

Eager hands pulled at clothes and they lay back on Dean's bed, naked and entwined. The shock of Cas's soft skin pressed full-length against his own made Dean flush with excitement. “Cas, baby,” he crooned. “Love you so much. Missed you, missed having you like this.” He cupped his hands around his angel's ass and guided their grinding hips into a rhythm.

Cas's cheeks were wet with tears, but he smiled, pressing kisses to the freckles on Dean's cheeks while he rubbed his cock against Dean's hip. “Dean, my Dean,” he moaned.

It didn't take long for either of them to find their release. As they rutted together, they murmured all the words of love that they'd both swallowed as they'd gone about the hard work of surviving in the camp. They'd spent so many months separated by misunderstandings and misguided attempts to repress the love they felt, and would _always_ feel, for each other. Cas spilled first, with a low moan and a whimpered _Dean_. The feel of him, warm and wet against his skin, brought Dean over the peak moments later.

They held each other in the afterglow, trading kisses and sweet smiles. Dean cleaned them both up with a rag from the floor, and they fed each other the rest of the bread. They stayed up for hours that night, kissing and touching and talking, clearing the air between them about everything that had happened since Detroit. They fell asleep together just before dawn – Cas's head on Dean's chest, Dean's arms wrapped tight around his Cas.

In the morning, Dean kissed his sweetheart awake, and they made love again. Then they got dressed and Cas led him outside, excited to teach him the fine art of baking sourdough bread.

**Author's Note:**

> Bread requires flour, a lot of it, and I have no idea how Camp Chitaqua would procure a steady supply of uncontaminated grain. Let's just handwave that away and pretend there's a burgeoning wheat field, fully functioning grist mill, and vermin-proof grain storage onsite, mmkay?
> 
> I bake bread twice a week, but I've never made sourdough. I did consult recipes while writing this fic, but I might still have misstated a technical detail.
> 
> Rebloggable link for this fic on tumblr is [here](https://blessyourhondahurley.tumblr.com/post/178956287081/october-11-flour-water-salt-verabadler).


End file.
